Of all the interview rooms in all the world you had to walk into mine

Well while I was out of the office licking coconut skins I had a good fun day. I always forget how much I miss interviewing people, spending time getting to know them and finding out more about people that previously I have only ever known on paper.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"

-Opening line from "A Tale of two cities" by Charles Dickens

That would be an an apt description of the day, I saw some of the best candidates and some of the worst candidates I have ever seen. As I have said before we try to make our interviews friendly and less confrontational but it is important as a candidate not to treat it as a talk with friends. You have to ensure that you don't make throw away comments that may reflect badly on you with people that don't know you.

I myself do it all the time in interviews, in one particularly poor example of my own I made a joke about how managers notoriously come up with ideas and left it to other people to sort out the details (Ok we all know its true but it is still on the list of banned topics at interview). Of course as I was being interviewed by managers they picked up on it.

The other learning point from the interviews is the usual one of research, research and research again. These are the easy questions that should be easy to get points for and they are some of the more important ones. Examples include:

Why are you applying for the job?
What do you know about "company concept"?
What do you know about the company?
What have you done to prepare for today's interview?
What do you think about this company project/ advertising / other etc?
What do you think are the challenges that face our business?

If you don't do the research you wont know the answers and even worse you could be forced to waffle through a question which leaves the interviewer with the impression that you don't really want the job.

I have previously mentioned the canteen at this site talking about their tendency to cremate bacon. As you know I need my coffee to get through my interview days and I started off with a cappuccino.

How wrong can you go with a cappuccino, you put the coffee granules in the cup, pour the milk on top and stir a bit to make sure its mixed and then pour some extra frothed milk on top. Simple really, so why did I have barely dissolved coffee granules on the top of my froth.

Good job I am not the incredible hulk, I would have torn my interview suit.

Although the pannini at lunch was nice and the filter coffee is always a pleasure.